`Mouse' leads guitar party

At outdo`or festivals, with their giant sound systems, long lines for beer and water, and sickening traffic flow, you inevitably find yourself waiting for something that goes wrong.

But Saturday night, throughout Q101's Block Party at the New City YMCA, you would have waited in vain.

Twelve thousand people converged on this brisk summer night to take in six of the most iconoclastic guitar-based rock bands at work in the rock universe.

It is a glorious day when Modest Mouse, a spooky and brilliant group from the Pacific Northwest, headlines a sold-out festival like this and plays a rapturously received 90-minute set. Even with the mind-boggling success of their current album, "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," Issac Brock's vision has been steadfast over the band's eight-year career -- genuinely funny, introspective and full of the unpretentious experiments of groups like the Minutemen.

On Saturday, he let his guitar speak, with stray harmonics and delays sparking underneath. And Brock's posture, too, strong and erect, confronted his demons with a courage that was invigorating to behold.

While Modest Mouse gets pegged with the "emo" tag, it's Death Cab For Cutie, also from the Pacific Northwest, that rightfully carries the torch for the scene.

What ultimately sets them apart from their peers is the degree to which their anger is tethered. DCFC's Ben Gibbard may indulge in melodramatic simplifications of adolescence, but the measured, chiming guitars and simmering rage from drummer Jason McGerr give the group a maturity that its lyrics often belie.

The Walkmen, from New York, opened the mainstage at dusk with a sound that evoked a drunk singing show tunes. Vocalist Hamilton Leithauser crooned and screamed the slight melodies. At the Chicago-only second stage, one could see three great, if far more traditional bands. The Reputation's Elizabeth Elmore let her hair coyly dangle over an eye as she chirped out the band's candy-coated, Tommy Keene-inspired pop punk. The Ponys broke down the five-course lessons of Television into easily digestible, retro snack cakes. Caviar, the last band on the second stage and certainly the oldest to perform, deserve the commercial success their Cheap Trick-inspired sound aims for.

From the teenagers with dyed black hair and eyebrow rings to the preppy thirtysomethings looking to enjoy some music in the outdoors, Saturday's $15 festival benefiting the YMCA and the Fairy Godmother Foundation was about as good a value as this city will see all year.